Important note: This is a critical and independent review and not a salesletter or an ad! The author of this review is not paid to write this review.

Product description and format

• PDF-document. 219 pages.
• Bonus report (PDF). 8 pages.
• Downloadable audio-files.

This is the basic version that I'm reviewing here.

Review 

Perry Marshall (with C. Kenna Amos):

The Definitive Guide to Writing and Promoting Your White Paper – How To Generate Sales Leads, get Free Publicity, and Print All The Money You Want by Publishing and Marketing Problem Solving Information

How can a white paper (also called, a free report) help you in your business?

Understanding the answer to that question and taking advantage of that knowledge, can be one of the smartest moves you can ever take for your business, says Perry Marshall, author of this book, “The Definitive Guide to Writing and Promoting Your White Paper”.

But back to the initial question: How can a white paper help you in your business?

Perry Marshall has the following to say about how you can use white papers to promote your business:

“White papers and reports are a GREAT piece of collateral to offer people in exchange for telling you who you are, and it works in every form of media. Post cards, websites, email, press releases, space ads, you name it – it’s a magical lead generation magnet” (page 11).

And a bit later in the book he says:

“During the last 17 months I’ve worked with dozens of clients and members, refining and fine-tuning this formula to the point where it produces killer results. Frankly, I’ve never seen it fail” (page 12).

However, I like Perry Marshall’s honesty and sobriety when he qualifies this statement by saying:

“Just to be fair, let me qualify that just a bit. This is not going to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and it’s not going to guarantee you instant riches. If you have a lousy product or something that people fundamentally don’t want, nothing can save you. But having said that, I’ve never seen a situation where a company was managing to make things work via the ‘traditional’ methods of selling, where this method doesn’t produce some really amazing results, for not very much money” (page 12).

I really respect Perry Marshall’s honesty, and it make everything else he write sound much more believable.

In fact, Perry Marshall tells his readers that using white papers was one of the main ways he was able to grow a “product business two thousand percent, from $200,000 to over $4 million. On October 18, 2001 we sold that company Lantronix, a publicly traded firm, for 18 million dollars” (page 12).

So, according to Perry Marshall, writing and publishing a white paper can be one of the most effective ways to promote your business.

And getting your first white paper ready can be accomplished in a very short period of time. He says:

“Two days max, to put together what may very well turn out to be the most effective sales lead generation strategy you’ve ever done!” (p. 4).

And on the top of that, a white paper is one of the most cost effective ways to promote your business.

Sounds good, don’t you agree?

So, writing and publishing your own white paper certainly seems like a very attractive way to promote your own business.

If you’ve read my review of Perry Marshall’s other book, “The Definitive Guide To Google AdWords”, you’ll know that I really like that book. So, it was with high expectations I began reading this book.

Was I disappointed?

Before I answer that question, please let me share with you some of the points Perry Marshall covers in this book.

Perry Marshall covers a lot in this book. Here are just some of the points he covers: 

• A complete system for using white papers to promote your business.
• How to find an attention pulling title for your white paper.
• How to make your title much more interesting, just by changing a few words.
• A special technique for using postcards to promote your white paper.
• How to test the popularity of different, potential topics for your coming white papers.
• Why white papers often out-pulls longer white papers.
• Perry Marshall’s, 29 point checklist for writing and promoting white papers, reports & information widgets.
• How to use your white papers to build your contact and customer list.
• What to put in your white paper.
• A step-by-step formula for easily writing your white paper.
• How to use pay-per-click search engines to promote your white paper.
• Lots of real white papers used in different niche markets.
• Etc., etc.

There is so much more really valuable and helpful information in the 219 pages this book has. But the content is never boring or theoretical. It’s evident that Perry Marshall really used this stuff himself, before he sat down and wrote the book.

“The Definitive Guide to Writing and Promoting Your White Paper” has so many helpful details and step-by-step explanations, that it’s very easy for you, the reader, to apply this marketing system.

For example, maybe it’s better to use another word than white paper, in your particular market. For instance, you could use the word, free report or, special report.

However, there is one aspect of writing, publishing, printing and promoting white papers that Perry Marshall neglects. I’m talking about printing the white papers. I’ve searched and search through the book, but I simply can’t find any guide to printing your white paper.

Now, I know that printing a white can be a very simple matter. And usually it doesn’t need to cause you any problems.

But still several issues aren’t addressed: Should I use a professional printer to print my white paper? Or should I just use a copy machine? Should I print my white papers on demand? Or is it wiser to print a whole bunch? And, How should I package my white paper? Should I use some kind of cover? Should I print it in colors or just white and black?

I would have liked to get a few guidelines here, based on Perry Marshall’s own experience and test results.

But when that’s said, I still think that it doesn’t really subtract from my overall, very positive impression of this book. It’s quite obvious that Perry Marshall focuses on the white paper lead generation marketing system he has developed, rather than the more technical aspects of developing and printing reports.

And I totally agree with Perry Marshall that the marketing aspect is by far the most important and usually most overlooked aspect of using white papers and special reports to promote your business.

Perry Marshall lists 43 different alternative terms for your white paper, if for some reason the term white paper doesn’t suit your particular niche.

It’s important to emphasize that “The Definitive Guide to Writing and Promoting Your White Paper” is much more than just an introductory guide to some of the more basic steps to writing and publishing a white paper.

Instead the author, Perry Marshall, has built a complete system for getting leads to your business, using white papers.

Perry Marshall’s system has many similarities with Dan S. Kennedy’s Magnetic Marketing system, and Perry Marshall readily admits his debt to Dan Kennedy.

But Perry Marshall has also added his own, unique twists to his system. And all in all he has created a fantastic lead generation system.

I like the way Perry Marshall has written “The Definitive Guide to Writing and Promoting Your White Paper”. I like his writing style, which is entertaining, lively and very readable.

It’s obvious that Perry Marshall – just like the best copywriters in the world – love stories. And so do I and most other readers. And the stories in this book has certainly made it even more readable.

Finally, Perry Marshall has added several very valuable bonuses to “The Definitive Guide to Writing and Promoting Your White Paper”. You get several downloadable audio files and extra reports and articles.

The book is a little bit expensive, but considering how much extremely useful and valuable marketing information you get in this book, I think it’s worth far more than what you pay for it.

Overall assessment

This is a fantastic book, in my opinion!

Writing and publishing a white paper is a fantastic way of marketing your business. But how exactly do you do it? Which subject do you choose for it? How do you write it? And if you consider using white papers to market your business, you probably have many other questions in mind.

In “The Definitive Guide to Writing and Promoting Your White Paper” Perry Marshall answers each of these questions plus a lot of others. And he shows his readers exactly how to get their first white paper written in minimum time and how to reap the maximum profit from it.

“The Definitive Guide to Writing and Promoting Your White Paper” contains all the details to you need to know in order to effectively use white papers. And the book is written in a way that makes it very easy for you, the reader, to take each step in the process towards your goal.

Perry Marshall concludes his introduction to this book with the following words:

“This book contains six years of my personal experience in developing tools like this. It’s about as close to a magic formula as I’ve ever discovered. Now I share it with you” (page 13).

I fully agree with Perry Marshall: White papers is a highly, highly effective, but very overlooked, way of marketing a business – especially a business that sells some kind of knowledge or more technical products. And I can’t imagine a better guide to this marvelous lead generation tool than “The Definitive Guide to Writing and Promoting Your White Paper”.

I heartily recommend this excellent book by Perry Marshall. Buy this book. You won’t regret it. I promise.

Price (at the time of this writing)

US $99

Contact information

Web site

Perrymarshall.com

Email

info@perrymarshall.com

Postal address

Perry S. Marhsall & Associates
1508 Ridgeland Avenue
Chicago IL 60402-4900
USA

Phone

(708)788-4461

Fax

(708)788-4599